2021 Round Up

Posting my end of year round up early before we head off to Hesleyside for New Year!

So this year the ponies got out to play again and they did a bit of everything, dressage, eventing, hunting, endurance, TREC, Tent Pegging, Western, polo, mounted falconry and more.  Chamfron Nicobar was our first British Eventing winner before going on to win his BE90 class at Blair Castle International Horse Trials.  Chamfron Colorado was selected for the Scottish Endurance team for the Home International in Yorkshire and stormed home, round and sound.  Chamfron Tizona was one half of the level 2a pairs winner at the Welsh TREC Championships and Chamfron Paloma was asked to do a spotlight at the Horsemanship Showcase.   Then you have the young horses like Chamfron Agata de Fuego and Chamfron Mojito coming out and putting a massive smile on my face and Chamfron Bellini coming back from injury to win her first two affiliated dressage competitions, gaining her area and regional qualifiers.

95% of my work life this year was based in the corner of my spare room though the 5% out of it did include some magical osprey fly-bys.  It feels like we have been treading water again this year, while the price of houses, horses and general living has rocketed.  I feel like all the good will seen in the first lockdown has vanished and people have got more insular and selfish, driving three inches from your bumper before parking on double yellows is the norm now.  A significant percentage of people still shop with their snouts hanging out their masks.  At some point I stopped blogging the deaths, the restrictions, the new variants, we are living with Covid, the risk is we are not really living despite having now had three vaccines.

It's not all been doom and gloom, some definite "high" points in the year and some interesting plans for 2022!

Chamfron Tizona - Hunting

Tizona had her first day out with the Ross Harriers and had a lovely time. 

Santa's little helpers

Go faster tinsel!

Chamfron Compostela

 Stela has been out showjumping for her first double clear.

Edinburgh at Christmas

The last two days have felt like Spring, fourteen degrees and not a breath of wind, it doesn't feel like mid December but Edinburgh is looking very festive.  There was a lovely muted sunset last night, the Forth was looking like a mill pond and several open water swimmers and paddle boarders were out.  

Festive Chamfron Colorado

Criollo, criollo, criollo!!

After a tip off I headed to ALDI and purchased a "few" bottles of Criollo wine and so I didn't look like an alcoholic, a small white chocolate unicorn.  While I was sampling that Mojito was out having his second dressage outing and Milano was popping round a 105cm course while decked out in jingle bells and flashing lights!  

 

Trees up...

Annual sink a bottle of Bailey's, cry on Craig and get the tree up.  This year we've pimped the pillars...

Chamfron Nicobar - 7 year old

Chamfron Chaco - 6yo

Chamfron Bellini - Affiliated Dressage

 Bellini's first affiliated outing and she smashed it with 69% and 70.20% and two first places.

Chamfron Firefly - Drag Hunting

Sammy had her first day out with the Kingdom Blazers today and was an absolute star,  80, 90 and 1m walls, ditches, banks and a 6ft drop off a 70 (there isn't a big enough hip flask made for me to fancy that with the complete lack of knee rolls on that saddle!!!). I have added some photos to the blog from the official photographer, they are watermarked which I never normally do but there seems to only be the option to download them watermarked and not one to buy them without.

Angel of the North

Stopped at the Angel of the North on the way up the A1 and picked up the Turf (a location based game, capturing virtual zones in physical locations - stop laughing, as hobbies go it makes way more sense than keeping a horse!)  When you take a zone in Turf, your icon's arms shoot out, so in the last photo we have me enacting the ultimate Turf, big icon, teeny wee icon!

In other news Chamfron Paloma had a Spotlight at the Horsemanship Showcase yesterday and got to perform to the public with owner Alison.

Lumiere 2021

Back to Durham for Lumiere, which is the light show Artichoke puts on every other year.  Another good night and the cathedral show was my favourite from all the years but I felt they lacked a stand out installation similar to the elephant or whale in the river from previous years.  A strict ticketing system thanks to Covid meant rare queues (though the 40 min one to watch a 15 sec video of not very much had us shaking our heads a bit) and the dry mild night was a bonus.